I’m working on upgrading the site, and one new feature is a video player that can handle video playlists.  To celebrate that fact, here’s a compilation of pixel work I did for Bell Mobility 2003-2007.

Bell Mobility used pixel graphics for two campaigns, one in 2003-05 for their solo brand in the west and then a nation wide campaign for all their brands in 2007. This covered Bell Mobility and Solo cel phone service, ExpressVu HD cable and the Sympatico internet brand. We created all the animated TV spots for these two campaigns, and a large batch of pixel design for print – magazines, newspapers and billboards.

Nostalgic 8bit graphics!

Dad... Why do the people on TV looks so much smoother that us?

This was the last commercial we produced for the Bell pixel campaign – I like the self-referential script on this one. This ad was actually produced in HD format, and it was quite a treat to see those giant blocky pixels in crispy clear HD. You might not think that HD would improve the look of low res pixel animation, but seeing the designs sharp is much more like viewing them on a computer monitor – its ultra-mega-pixelicious!

Bell Canada moved on to advertising with the beavers frank and gordon after this and having just dropped them are currently in a transition to a new campaign.. Farewell pixel people, it was fun!

click below to watch the HD people ad here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Paul Boyd
Design: Toke Nygaard
Agency: Cossette Communications

View Quicktime version here:
http://afterfx.net/video/hdtv-people

..are you ready to ROCK!?!

Finally an ad that blends hair metal rock bands and looney tunes style impact with the ground! This ad also features the samsung a920 jive phone and encourages you to download music directly to your cell phone. I love the classic rock band stylings in this spot, and the dazed single focused obsession with being ready to rock. Nice impact with the amp and drums too!

view the air band commercial here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Scott Kiborn & Paul Boyd
Design: Toke Nygaard
Agency: Rethink Advertising

Quicktime Version Here:
http://afterfx.net/video/air-band

..are we merely watching shadows on a cave wall?

This Olympic theme spot for bell mobility goes way way back to when men wore togas and the Pegasus ran free. Featuring the Samsung a920 (aka ‘the jive’ phone) this ad also introduces us to the predecessor of our modern luge competition: sliding down an icy hill on an old shield.

This one was also a Bessie award winner. I believe we were simultaneously working on about 9 different pixel ads for Bell at this time, and this commercial was a finalist in the 2006 best single spot category, winning Bessie craft awards for writing, art direction and animation. Yay us!

view the bell greeks olympic ad here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Celest Brown
Design: Nathaniel Akin
Agency: Rethink Advertising

Quicktime Version Available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/greeks

Which is faster, a rabbit or a cheetah?

This Bell Mobility ad features the return of JT & Carl, who originally showed up in the tv@work commercial. This version of Cheeta is the directors cut, which includes a rivulet of flourescent green toxic waste in the lab. For some reason Bell didn’t want to be associated with toxic waste.

This commercial compares the speed of Bell Mobility and Rogers cellular network speed, which made Rogers so unhappy they sued BCE claiming

“The Cheetah & Hare ad disparages denigrates, discredits, tarnishes, diminishes and otherwise depreciates the value of the goodwill associated with the Rogers trademarks and Rogers brand. Rogers is symbolically devoured, choked on and then spat out by Bell,”

The full story is on cbc.ca

View the bell mobility cheetah commercial here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Cesare Battista
Design: Toke Nygaard
Agency: Rethink Advertising

Quicktime version available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/cheetah

When they said 'nutcracker' I don't think this is what they meant.

There are some nice little touches in these ads – I like the gelatinous turkey action as its being stuffed and the spray of walnut shells accompanied by little electrical crackles when it gets crushed in the laptop.

view these two commercials here:

Bell Sympatico boxing day ad Turkey:

Bell Sympatico boxing day ad Walnuts:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Paul Boyd & Celest Brown
Design: Toke Nygaard & Vicki Wong
Agency: Cossette Communications

Quicktime version of these spots is availiable here:
http://afterfx.net/video/turkey-walnuts

Four un-employed reindeer walk into a bar...

We went through several design revisions for our raindeer – we’d already developed a standard design guide for human characters, but anthropomorphic animal characters added another layer of interesting design challenges. They had to look a bit grumpy and burnt out, but not too drunk.

This was one of those scripts that come in that are just right. There were very few changes from the original script for this one, though we did spend a bit of time making the glow on Rudolph’s red nose just right.

view the Bell Mobility Remaindeers commercial here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Ian Godfrey & Steve Hillman
Design: Toke Nygaard & Vicki Wong
Agency: Rethink Advertising

Quicktime version available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/the-remaindeers

update: this ad has been selected to screen in competition at the Ottawa Animation Festival in September 2006.

Oh believe me kids, the ghosts of the eighties are the scariest kind.

Ah.. brickphones. ..Those old brick phones were indestructible, but alas they dont include all the things we want in a phone these days: mp3 players, television, email, vibrating massage.. oh and portability.

view the Bell Ghost of Christmas Past pixel ad here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Animation: Celest Brown
Design: Toke Nygaard
Agency: Rethink Advertising

Quicktime version available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/ghost-of-christmas-past

Would you rather be working, or watching TV?

This commercial started out as a pitch. In the fall of 2005 Bell canada’s advertising campaign used mostly stock images and lacked strong branding consistency. Bell started losing some of the brand name recognition they had built up during the first pixel ad campaign, particularly in the west.

This spot kicked off the return of pixel art advertising for Bell, but this time they decided to use this style for all of their branding rather than just the youth brand. All of a sudden Bell was using our pixel style ads for ther Mobility, ExpressVU & Sympatico brands. This made us very busy over the fall and winter, with campaigns for TV, newspaper and magazine ads that all had to be designed in this pixel style. We worked with two agencies on this campaign: Rethink in Vancouver and Cossette in Toronto.

to watch the ad click below:

quicktime version of this commercial available here:

http://afterfx.net/video/tv-at-work

..along came a spider to play mobile phone based video games..

view the commercial here:

Credits:

Directed by: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Tina Oullette
Animation & Design: Nathaniel Akin
Agency: Rethink Advertising

Quicktime version available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/spider-man-2-gaming